What If...
by The Fifth Maurauder
Summary: What if Harry had never met Hermione and Ron on the Hogwarts express? What if he'd met Draco Malfoy instead. What if he'd never heard of Slytherin's reputation...what if everything was turned around?
1. Chapter One

Draco Malfoy shaded his deep, gray eyes against the glinting sun as he stared down the long platform that was 9 3/4. He let a small sigh escape his thin lips, brushing his silver-blonde hair out of his eyes as he started to walk again. The trolley he pushed in front of him was, or course, laden with all of his Hogwart's belongings, bought two weeks in advance.  
  
Just in front of him, stood a family. Wizards, obviously, he could tell by the trolleys. Only one, he noted, was equipped with an owl. The 11-year-old sneered, out of sheer habit, glancing down at his egle owl. His father had just purchased it for him the week before.  
  
The gray hues where turned back on the wizarding family. All had red hair and multiple freckles. 'Must be Weasleys,' he thought, tuning away again and heading toward the train. His father had told him about families like the Weasleys. No-account-muggle lover, he called them. Draco was prone to think of his father as just a tad judgemental, but to say anything would be a punishment worse than death.  
  
A black haired boy cut quickly in front of him with his trolley, heading toward the Weasleys. Draco recognized him at once. He had seen this boy at Madame Malkin's robe shop at Diagon Alley. He cursed himself silently for not asking the boy's name.  
  
Draco Malfoy was not a stupid boy.  
  
The first thing he had noticed about this boy was his beautiful green eyes. Draco's father's eyes where quite similar, which, as usual, was the first connection he made. Somehow, he knew that this boy would either be a powerful ally, or a stubbon adversary. He hoped that he would be friend, rather than foe.  
  
Draco didn't have any real friends, just Crabbe and Goyle. They weren't really friends, though...more like aquantances. It was rather hard to have an intelligent conversation with two bumbling idiots. There was an intelligence in that boy's eyes...something of a feeling that sprang life into Draco's otherwise dreary world. It was exciting. New.  
  
Draco shook the thought from his head, and started toward the train. 


	2. Chapter Two

Harry Potter's eyes gravely turned toward the iron barrier in between platforms nine and ten. What was he to do? Go through the barrier as the red-headed woman had suggested? He sighed gently, pushing his trolley forward and gradually lurching into a jog. He awaited a crash, anything, but found himself not on the ground with his parcels shrewn around him, but standing on a platform. Platform 9 3/4.  
  
Around him, the sounds of many happy voices and the hooting of owls greeted him where he stood, blinking against the suddenly blaring sunlight. He sighed, brushing his hair from his eyes. A brown haired girl stood just ahead of him, talking rather quickly to her parents, who looked quite shaken. They must have been...ah...what was it that Hagrid had called them? Oh yes, muggles.  
  
After securing his trunk in the baggage cart, Harry scaled the train steps, peering around in wonder. He followed the isle to the very last compartment, throwing himself down with a sigh. He was so engrossed in the scenes out the window, that he didn't notice that someone had entered his compartment.  
  
An icy voice startled him siddenly, and Harry spun around to face the speaker. "Is this seat taken?" The person had said. It was a boy, about Harry's age, maybe younger, who stood before him. His hair was silver- blonde, and his eyes where a deep and menacing gray.  
  
"No," Harry said quietly. "Go ahead," He motioned to the seat just across from him, and the boy sat down. He could feel those gray eyes boaring into him, and he turned back, finally, and snapped, "Can I help you with something?"  
  
The boy simply shrugged. "My name is Draco Malfoy." He waited for Harry to laugh, but he didn't. "Harry Potter." Harry said slowly, extending a hand which Draco shook. "Hn. You're Harry Potter, then? I don't know why I hadn't guessed it before..."  
  
Harry looked up again, just as the compartment door was pulled open once more. A red-haired boy stood there. If Harry where a bitter person, he would have laughed aloud. The boy's appearence was almost comical, what with his firey-red hair and multitude of freckles.  
  
"Sorry," He said quickly, eyeing Draco wickedly. "I didn't know this compartment was occupied." With that, the boy turned and quickly left.  
  
"What was that all about?" Harry asked Draco, as he leaned back against the back of his seat. Trains where a lot more comfortable than he thought they where. Draco glanced out the window, toward the door, and then back at Harry.  
  
"That was a Weasley. They're no good, you know. Nothing but riff-raff who'll take you for whatever you've got, once you get to like them." He replied. Harry blinked. "He didn't seem to bad on the platform," he said quietly, and Draco nodded. "Trust me. No good, that 'un."  
  
Harry made a small noise of understanding, his eyes shifting to stare out the window again. He looked up once more to find the strange Draco Malfoy staring at him intently.  
  
"What is it?" He said irritably, shifting under the pale boy's gaze. "Your scar. It's the most curious shape, really, I'd heard it was the shape of a bolt of lightning. It seems that my sources have yet to deny me the truth." He squinted his eyes, examinging the scar closely, until Harry stood, now shaking, and walked toward the food trolly.  
  
"Yes, one of everything, please." He said gently to the woman who posed the trolly. "Are you alright, dear? You look sick!" The witch exclaimed, handing Harry one of every bit of food on the trolly...plus a little extra, since he looked so sickly.  
  
"You'll spoil your appetite." Draco commented, watching as Harry endulged himself in a pumpkin pasty. "There's a feast, once we reach the castle."  
  
Harry looked up with a smile. "Want some?" He asked extending a pasty to the boy across from him, and Draco simply stared, bemused. No one had ever offered to share anything with him before... "Alright," He said, finally, taking the offered pasty.  
  
Rain pattered gently on the window, and Hedwig, Harry's birthday gift from Hagrid, hooted lightly in sleep, her head tucked gently under her wing. The train rattled on...on it's way to Hogwarts, and a brand new start for Harry Potter: the boy who lived. 


	3. Chapter Three

Ron Weasley's dark brown eyes opened sharply at the sharp jolt in his side. He sat up quickly with a gasp, peering down at his side. His rat, Scabbers, had clawed him in his sleep as he dreamed...well, whatever rats dreamed.  
  
His brown eyes flickered to the curtains around his bed and he tugged gently, peering out into the cool dormatory. His fingers clasped the goblet which rested on his bedside table, and he took a long gulp of water, running his tongue over his lips to ebb any wayward droplets.  
  
He sighed inwardly, his mind turning back, once again, to Harry Potter. Fred and George, his older brothers, had told him that they had seen Harry on the train. Ron so longed to meet him, but thanks to Draco Malfoy, that didn't seem like a possibility.  
  
Harry had been sorted into Slytherin.  
  
Ron shuddered gently. There was no way Potter could turn over to the dark side when he was the reason for the very downfall of the most feared of Dark Lords, Lord Voldemort. Ron shuddered once more. Even now, after ten years, people still feared to speak his name.  
  
Hermione Granger, that annoying know-it-all, had pointed out that even in their first-year textbooks, they neglected to mention the Dark Lord's name, referring to him always as You-Know-Who. Hermione Granger was always the first to point things out, Ron noted. He mentally told himself to place a rift between she and himself as soon as possible.  
  
He heard Neville Longbottom shift in his sleep and snort as his face hit the pillow, and Ron smiled wryly. So far, he was friendless at this place, save his brothers, of course. Ron's mind wandered to Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter once more. Ever since he had heard of Potter, he had dreamed of meeting him, of being his friend.  
  
Ron sighed with a sharp realization that this could never be. He would always be only Ronald Weasley, best friend of no one. Ron's eyes closed once more as he sniffled slightly, cuddling up under his blankets, his rat scurrying into the crook of his arm, and Ron almost instantly fell asleep.  
  
Harry's night was considerably more rested. Emerald eyes closed, and stayed closed for a full ten hours. It was Draco who had trouble sleeping that first night.  
  
His blonde hair was disheveled as he sat there, legs swong over the side of the four-poster as he stared aimlessly at the wall. Seeing as no window was present in the small dorm, for they where under ground.  
  
"It's so dark," he whispered to himself, glancing to where Harry slept, so peacefully, without a single care. How Draco wished he could be so carefree, but alas, Draco Malfoy was witness to a terrible secret. A secret that would plauge his new friend's life until the day he died.  
  
Lucious Malfoy, Draco's father, planned to destroy the boy...to kill him as his parents where killed. Draco shifted uncomfortably in the darkness as thoughts of Harry, dead on the ground, came to his mind.  
  
Of course, Draco had written his father the moment he arrived in his dorm, telling him that Potter had been sorted into Slytherin, but he doubted this would do much to save his friend's life. Draco sighed gently, running a hand through his hair.  
  
A friend. He had found a friend in Harry Potter the moment he met him, and Draco didn't want to lose that. He vowed that he wouldn't as he looked upon the boy just across the dorm who slept so peacefully. No one would hurt Harry as long as it was in Draco's power to prevent it.  
  
(A/N: Yeah, sorry it's so short. Next chapter will be longer. Hope you liked it, R/R!) 


End file.
